This Is What Consumers Do While They're Shopping Online

Many shopping websites feel like they’re designed for people who have no distractions. But e-commerce is increasingly done on mobile devices and consumers often have many things going on around them. It would be interesting to know what else consumers are doing when they shop online, which would help a brand design a better site. Now a study just released by Namogoo reveals what else consumers do when they shop online and what some of their needs and frustrations are.

The most common thing consumers are doing when they’re shopping online is – you probably guessed this one – working. More than 57% of online shoppers have shopped at work. In fact, there’s a good chance you’re working (kind of) while you’re reading this article. The other popular things that online shoppers do when they’re shopping are: household chores, in-store comparison shopping, cooking, dining out and running errands. Less than 20% of online shoppers have shopped while commuting. That’s probably because most people in the U.S. drive to work and fewer people use mass transit to commute. But more than 6% of online shoppers have shopped while driving and a few more than that have shopped online while exercising. (Would everyone please be careful.) Of all daily activities done while shopping, people seem to want less distraction while they’re walking the dog than at any other time. It ranked lowest of all activities for the time when consumers shop online.

What consumers do while shoppingCourtesy Namogoo

Given that so much shopping is done while people are doing other things, what makes for a great shopping experience now? The Namogoo study found a few things. The most important is clear product images – more than 87% of people say that’s part of a great online shopping experience for them. The second most important factor for a great online shopping experience is reviews, slightly more important than product descriptions and not something that all retailers focus on. The least important item, despite the explosion in video content generally, is product videos.

What helps consumers' shopping experienceCourtesy Namogoo

What’s the worst part of the checkout process for online shoppers? The number one frustration is having to enter the same information twice. Other items that also rated high in checkout frustration all related to clunky websites: a back button that doesn’t go to the previous page, inability to modify or change an order, complicated website navigation and too many fields to fill out all ranked highly on the shopper frustration scale.

What makes consumers abandon their carts? Of course, shipping and other fees were the most common reason and websites that don’t work were number two. Number three was having to create an account and security concerns were next. You can see why Amazon has such a strong pull on so many consumers. The frustrations they experience at many sites hardly exist if you’re a regular shopper at Amazon.

What should a brand do when a shopper abandons their cart but the brand still wants the sale? The most effective thing is to send the consumer an email with a discount for the items in the cart. The second most effective thing is to send an email without a discount. That raises the question of how flexible do you want to be about your price? How important is it to have price integrity and will consumers get trained to let a cart sit until you send them an email offering a discount? Those are hard questions involving key strategy questions. So often it’s tempting to do what you have to do to get the next sale but often that comes at the expense of future growth.

One thing all these issues have in common is how fast they’re changing. With mobile technology growing so rapidly, consumer behavior is changing fast as well. One of the issues that marketers have to consider is shopping by voice. The distractions that consumers face will change as voice shopping grows. It’s possible that voice shopping will be the new activity while driving to work. If that happens, it may create a resurgence in billboard advertising and radio, the modes that can reach consumers in their cars. As technology offers consumers new ways to use their time, they will try to create more opportunities for simultaneous productivity and personal time. Marketers have to be nimble and never more so than right now.

I have been doing mergers, acquisitions and capital-raising for over 35 years. I am a co-founder and partner at Triangle Capital LLC where we specialize in working with consumer-related businesses. Before Triangle Capital, I was Managing Director at a boutique firm called Fi...